Jiang hu qi xia

The beauty of this is in the casting, the main boy and girl (Jimmy Wang Yu and Ping Chin) are a perfect screen couple in likability. You are just glued to them and they evoke young love inside this alien fairy tale, mythic world of ancient China. When the swords come out at the end, it's been a long hour plus build-up. Of course we the audience don't know yet that character is the kung fu legend Wang Yu, we just saw him as the boyish guy in the first half fumbling around. So his explosion of swordplay is cathartic. The sword fights I would not really say are glamorous or even artistic. It is a kind of swordplay that seems realistic, exhaustive, but also achieving in theatricality. It is just really satisfying to watch. Throughout it, the film has these flashes of violence and gore inside a restrained chamber family drama. I was impressed at how much it is doing with how little, with two or three characters just talking in those stretches and forming this whole family dilemma. Meanwhile it is doing all this pulp. The villains of the Red Lotus seem out of a spaghetti western, perhaps it's introducing them too late. But there are some cool booby traps, spikes out the ground and statues that hug you. I loved it how it crosses pulp action cinema with Merchant Ivory class, and there are not really any western equivalents, so it's very fresh for me. The comedic touches, and this constant danger that any moment the ninja stars / darts can take someone out are keeping you constantly on the edge. But sometimes the darts have sarcastic messages they unpeel from slips of paper. Last, the women, including the whole line of the girl, mother, and grandma, it's a profound exploration of women on screen that I wasn't expecting, with these evocative close-ups. The movie is a beautiful kind of punk art. I hope to see the sequels next, the Twin Swords and the Sword and the Lute.